The teddy bear fiasco in Sudan doesn’t look like it is going away. Null’s WTF is a good starting point, and from there the Times Online takes up some of the slack.
Writing today, Joanna Sugden notes:
Gillian Gibbons has today been charged with blasphemy, and accused of inciting hatred and insulting Islam, in Sudan for allegedly naming a class teddy bear Muhammad.
Now, I am obviously much to rational to be able to work out how naming a class teddy bear Muhammed either incites hatred or insults Islam. If she had named the bear “Islamic law is madness and anyone who follows it is a lunatic,” I could see their point, but she didn’t.
She made the mistake of allowing her class to vote on a name for the bear. Obviously this is the problem. Acts of democracy and free-thinking for children is potentially deadly for Islamic nations and they seek to stamp it out at the earliest possible stage. Loki forbid that Sudanese law have concepts such as mens rea – who cares if she intended to do wrong, the fact of the matter is a thinly skinned religion has taken the hump over a trivial issue. Who said Islam had no sense of humour? (Well they were right)
Interestingly, and just in case the raging nutcase Christians thought they were being let off lightly today, the article on the times has this snippet:
Blasphemy is a crime on the statute book of Sudan, as it is in many countries governed by Islamic law.
My, what backward nations they are… Oh, hang on a second… Blasphemy is still a crime on the statue book of the United Kingdom and we certainly are not governed by Islamic law… (I suppose the only difference is you wont get 40 lashes in the UK…)
If you are sane enough to think this is madness please take a moment to sign the petition calling for the revocation of this nonsensical law. If you have a blog, please spread the word about this petition.
Both depressing and absurd. So absurd that you’d imagine the Daily Mail had made it up out of whole cloth to add to the general levels of fear.
Is this the 21st century? We were supposed to be scooting round the planet on our free-energy jetpacks after doing an hour’s light work by now, not sinking into pits of bigoted and paranoid stupidity that would have raised eyebrows at the time of the witch trials.
How insecure must belief be if it needs defending against such “insults”?
In any case, isn’t the Teddy supposed to be already named for a US president?
You would imagine that renaming a soft toy after the Islamic prophet would be more welcome in the Sudan than naming it after a leader of the great Satan. But, who can understand Shari’a law?
While the reaction is a little over the top. People should be very carful when they visit other countries. What she did was stupid, in the current climate she should have thought a little harder.
This is appaling – if she is not freed today I will definately boycot anything Sudanese. There is absolutely no way they can justify this. Absolutely not – and the lack of support for their action shows how even Muslims have difficulties in explaining this one, so how she as a non muslim should have realised this – many Muslim boys are called Muhammed, and we have a tradition for giving teddy bears names so it is a natural leap for both chidlren and teacher – how she should have thought this would be wrong I dont know.
My daughter has thought of going out to Malaysia to teach english for her gap year, I must admit I am now against that idea – she can go but not to a Muslim country to teach it is simply too dangerous!
Sadly, the madness hasn’t ended. (Hat tip nullifidian)
It looks like the teacher was found guilty and will now spend 15 days in a Sudanese jail then be deported.
Well done Sudan for putting to rest the stereotypes of African nations and Islam. Wonderful.
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